Tag Archives: RUSSIA/ UKRAINE/ US/ NATO/ EU.

THE BEADY EYE SAYS. WE ALL KNOW THAT WAR IS ORGANIZED BARBARISM ON AN ENORMOUS SCALE.

12 Tuesday Apr 2022

Posted by in 2022: The year we need to change., THE ISRAELI- PALESTINIAN PROBLEM., The Ukraine., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., THIS IS THE STATE OF THE WORLD.  , Truth, War Crimes., Where's the Global Outrage.

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( Seven-minute read) 

No matter how much you know — or think you know — about any War, there are always more horrible things lurking in the shadows.Nazi military parade

Cast your eyes over any recent conflict, and you’ll see a litany of generals, politicians, and nations that have gotten away with stuff so horrific it defies comprehension.

This post is not an attempt to justify crimes of warfare. It is a feeble attempt to highlight the double standards went it comes to defining them.

                                      —————–

Our best hope of curbing humankind’s peculiar talent for superfluous
violence and extravagant self-destruction lies in the ideal of humanitarianism.

What is a war crime? 

War crimes are often associated with atrocities committed on a scale that defies credulity. I.E the number of victims did not pass some arbitrary threshold. At the most basic level, war crimes are [objectionable] acts committed by combatants, either against other combatants or against noncombatants—that is, civilians—during wartime.

Mass murder and genocide—crimes against humanity and atrocities committed on a large scale—have become the hallmarks of war crimes.

The question is who or what decides which acts are war crimes.

In an eerie echo of our own time, defining war crimes is not so much the issue anymore.

It’s prosecuting them actually, administering justice that is the primary obstacle.

The ICC is the product of a strand of idealistic thinking about justice between waring states stretching back at least to the first world war.

                                  —————-

In world war two was it a crime to kill 60,000 to 80,000 people in Hiroshima and another 75,000 in Nagasaki or 100,000 people in one night during the firebombing of Tokyo, an event barely talked about today.

In the American war in Vietnam, was it a crime to shower 45 million liters of the herbicide Agent Orange? In the process, it doomed up to 4.8 million Vietnamese residents.

Ask someone today to list war crimes of recent history and he or she may think of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia or genocide in Rwanda, the Afghan war, the Syrian War, the Yemeni War, the Iraq war, the list is endless.

The overall theme is hard to miss but there is a vast gulf separating our indifference to war crimes. 

A few months after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (hereinafter referred to as “9/11”), the Bush Administration decided that the Geneva Conventions did not protect members of Al Qaeda.

The president (George W. Bush) thinks the ICC is fundamentally flawed because it puts American servicemen and women at fundamental risk of being tried by an entity that is beyond America’s reach, beyond America’s laws, and can subject American civilians and military to arbitrary standards of justice.

Another example is that there are clear parallels between Russian and Israeli violations of international law, including the committing of war crimes by Israeli military actions in the occupied Palestinian territories.

There are no sanctions against Israel that have so far desisted from joining nations including the US, Europe, the UK, Australia, and Japan in the imposition of an “unprecedented” number of sanctions on Russia, Belarus, and the two breakaway Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in the wake of the invasion. 

According to Israel’s controversial Law of Return, “Jews, their children, grandchildren and spouses” are all eligible to visit Israel and claim Israeli citizenship. 

However, millions of Palestinian refugees are unable to return to the homes they and their forebears were expelled from in Israel and the occupied West Bank in 1948 and 1967.

Israel has granted citizenship to Russian mining oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov, a figure linked to President Vladimir Putin and known to be one of the world’s richest men.

Last year, the two countries said the ICC should drop an investigation of Israel in part on the grounds that Palestine is not a sovereign country, although it is recognized as a state by the UN.

Netanyahu has accused the ICC of “pure anti-Semitism” for investigating attacks and has said Israel does not accept the ICC’s jurisdiction, however, it does not have to. 

Whatever the answer, it seems unlikely that President Bush or Benjamin Netanyahu, will ever be tried for war crimes but the question of whether they actually committed war crimes remains.

                                         ——————

Neither the US nor Russia nor China nor Ukraine are members of the ICC. 

If justice in general moves slowly, international justice barely moves at all.

Investigations at the ICC take many years. Only a handful of convictions have ever been won and by the time the Barbarian is locked up there is nationwide amnesia.

Court proceedings can be brought in one of two ways:
 
Either a national government or the UN Security Council can refer cases for investigation. Russia, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, has veto power over council actions.
 

In all likelihood, there will never be a trial for either President Bush or Putin not to mention Benjamin Netanyahu,. 

Why?

I think it has a lot to do just with the power, the authority, of well-heeled countries, powerful countries, to shield their political and military members from prosecution by bodies like the ICC. 

Even if we were able to bring War Criminals to trial we just don’t have a true international police force that would arrest the offenders. 

                                   —————————

War is a place where young people who don’t know each other and don’t hate each other, kill each other, by the decision of older rulers who know each other and hate each other, but don’t kill each other. 

It’s a world in which if you have the power you also have the power not to be held accountable for your power.

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Where are we with the Russian Ukraine war?
 
Could Russian leaders be brought to justice under international law?
 
Yes.  Because they fall under the overarching crime of aggression, all uses of armed force by Russia on Ukrainian territory can be viewed as illegal.
 
But that doesn’t mean the country pointing the finger has always been in the right itself.
 
Are countries supplying arms prolonging the war? Yes  
 
The national interest is for this war to end. If we wish to stop war crimes then we need to stop the war. Prolonging it will only see more of the same.
 
We should not be blackmailed and guilt-tripped into feeding more weapons into the meat grinder. How about, just for once, we put our own interests first?                                            
 
On the other hand, understanding the twin meanings of ‘humanity’ means something universal and immensely important”. Recognising its worth is “the least we owe the dead.
 
Meanwhile, NATO is just itching to get further involved in the war. 

We live in a world in which making the wrong comment on social media can lead to people losing their jobs but where politicians and public officials, whose actions affect the lives of millions and whose failure can lead to deaths in the most unimaginable circumstances, can simply walk away and into their next lucrative assignment.

While our own media doubles down on warmongering. They seem not to care if further escalation will plunge all of Europe into economic hardship or risk wider conflict. For some reason, it’s news to Western pundits that war isn’t very nice.

In the end, this war is shining a light on just how useless our United Nations is and dark skin automatically made you less than human.

There was a day that the UN could muster Blue helmets to intervene in conflicts. Now, all it can do is pass worthless resolutions.

                                    —————– 

When it comes to war crimes, Ukraine’s hands are also blooded.

What’s bizarre about this is that these countries that are supplying millions in arms are the same people courting Ukrainian membership of the EU, as though Ukraine was some kind of liberal democracy.

As with all wars, they end with denials of involvement in killing the innocent which are called collateral damage or a mistake of identification by a rogue drone, or ballistic rocket.     

The issue of reparations doubtless will be raised in negotiations to resolve the conflict and as an international condition for resuming any normal relationship with Russia. If the sanctions are eventually lifted in stages, it could prove effective to include conditions requiring the surrender of indicted fugitives.

Perhaps if the United Nations were to tell Mr. Putin that it is going to place a few thousand Blue Helmets between the present front lines Russia would think twice about any further advancement. 

( It is however due to the presence of Nato on the Russian borders too late. As they would be labeled Nato, not UN) 

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE. TOLD YOU SO: WITH NO SOLOUTION TO THE RUSSIAN/UKRAINE WAR WE ARE HEADING FOR A MASSIVE RECESSION

26 Saturday Mar 2022

Posted by in 2022: The year we need to change., The Ukraine.

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( Fifteen-minute read) 

Severe sanctions on Russia with the rectitude of the Pandemic are now creating a deep recession, resulting in an economic downfall that will be felt by people around the world.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict has so far driven energy higher but the knock-on effects are yet to be seen. 

If Vladimir Putin retaliates to wester sanctions by cutting off Russian supplies of Oil /Gas the result will not be just a recession but civil unrest.

                             —————–

Of course, one would be a fool to predict what happens in a war. 

Beyond the military cost and the Human costs, this war is rapidly

turning into a quagmire not just for Russians but for all of us.  

It will not just be pushing millions into poverty and threatening

a deep recession as it evolves into a proxy war with which to

attack Russia and through it China. 

We have seen nothing yet.

                            ——————

When it comes to inflation the war’s international economic effect is starting to show in the numbers. 

If the cost of energy and food is pushed up by dwindling supplies caused by the Russian-Ukraine conflict we will see inflation go well beyond 10%.  

Both countries, Russia or Ukraine,  were once dubbed “the breadbasket of Europe”, exporting about a quarter of the world’s wheat and half of its sunflower products, like seeds and oil. 

For example, in the UK there are about 2.2 million homeowners with mortgages linked to the Bank of England’s base rate would see repayments go up, putting further pressure on household budgets that are already being squeezed by the cost of living.

Russian stocks crashed by as much as 45% in the wake of the Ukraine invasion with trading subsequently suspended, with banks and oil companies among the worst affected. It also led to steep falls on stock markets elsewhere around the world: in Europe, the UK’s FTSE 100 index has fallen over 6% since Russia crossed into Ukraine while Germany’s Dax index is nearly 10% lower.

Everyday goods – which may seem far removed from the conflict – but Russia is a leading commodities exporter.

Russia is one of the world’s largest suppliers of metals used in everything from aluminum cans to copper wires, to car components, such as nickel, which is used in lithium-ion batteries, and palladium, which is used in catalytic converters.

What we lack is a government with vision, courage, a sense of urgency, and basic competence coupled with an understanding that the world has changed.

With truth has been rejected by most of the

world’s population well before the shooting wars

started.  It is difficult to discern what the

planned end state of this war is.

However, as we all know the truth is the first casualty of wars so it’s a good time to start really learning how to watch what is going on. 

Here are some raw facts.

Partitioning a state causes all sorts of problems. This is how Ukraine and Northern Ireland were created in the first place – people meddling with the borders of territories.

Russia would need 800,000 troops — almost equal to its entire active-duty military — to control Ukraine long-term in the face of the armed opposition.

The slow advance of Russian troops in Ukraine shows that NATO’s fearmongering about some huge Siberian tiger force is fake; Putin commands only a paper tiger. Ukraine doesn’t need a NATO and neither do bigger states like Germany, France, Italy, or the UK.

The Russian army still has far superior firepower to the Ukrainian army. This superiority means that, despite some localized Ukrainian counter-offensives, it retains the initiative.

Faced with the hostility of the Ukrainian population united by this invasion, the Russian army will have difficulty maintaining control of the conquered territories. A protracted guerrilla war would ensue. 

In a nutshell, the confrontations would continue for many more long months, even years.

Russia will not just let what’s left of Ukraine go its merry way to become another problem in a decade or so.

Something will be formed and the Russians will mostly go home but NATO will not give up on stirring the pot. They may even fold what is left into NATO and then it will really be game on.

So, we have a new war to watch.

For some, it is just a weird kind of entertainment. For others, it is a good way to refine our thinking skills and our understanding of the world. We learn how to work through misinformation and build a clear picture of what is really going on.

Where is this going to stop? 

There is always a need for political courage to create space for peace and leave room for a political settlement. It takes two hands to clap.’ whatever the circumstances.

Ukraine is now engaged in a direct conflict with Russia. As a result, the model must be Ukrainian. In the event of an agreement based on these principles, the Kremlin would undoubtedly struggle to present as a “victory” a situation that, in fact, would be more “locked-in” than the one that existed before the invasion began.

Part of the problem is that Ukraine was not a neutral country when Russia first invaded it. The country formally abandoned its neutral status in late 2014. 

Neutrality is not a neutral concept but a complex political one, with major implications for countries’ international and domestic policies and development.

Relations between the EU and Nato the West, especially those countries that have acted in supplying weapons to Ukraine or implementing sanctions, are very unlikely to return to the state they were in before this conflict but Ukraine is just not the wake-up call to nations that new order is emerging.

So the real question, as civilians continue to be killed throughout Ukraine and negotiators try to hammer out a compromise, is this:

What arrangement would preserve actual independence for Ukraine, while still being acceptable to the Kremlin?

The war going on in Ukraine right now is about using Ukraine as a buffer to all the problems of sovereignty in a world that is going to see more conflict as Climate change forces people to move. 

How best to respond to a Russian invasion that threatens fundamental principles of sovereignty and respect for international borders that had, in theory at least, served as the foundation of European peace and security since the end of the Second World War.

Putin declared at the end of his Feb. 23 address : 

“Whoever tries to interfere with us, and even more so to create threats to our country, to our people, should know that Russia’s response will be immediate and will lead you to such consequences as you have never experienced in your history. We are ready for any development of events. All necessary decisions in this regard have been made. I hope that I will be heard.”

While stopping short of threatening the use of nuclear weapons, Putin’s comments left no doubt that any intervention by NATO as an organization, or individual NATO members, in Ukraine would result in war with Russia.

NATO is playing a risky game, however, by continuing to supply lethal weapons to Ukraine that originate from and are shipped through NATO members’ territory.

While the threat of NATO overreach in providing air support to the Ukrainian government exists, the greatest potential for a NATO-Russian clash in Ukraine rests in the ongoing flow of refugees from Ukraine into neighboring territories.

If Russia begins its long-anticipated assault on Kyiv or otherwise engages in activities that dramatically alter the situation in the rest of Ukraine, it is anticipated that millions more Ukrainians will be seeking refugee status, creating the real potential for one of the greatest humanitarian emergencies since the end of the Second World War.

If the war in Ukraine continues unabated at a level equaling or exceeding its current scope and scale, it is not a stretch of the imagination to think that there will be a refugee-induced crisis that will require some form of humanitarian intervention.

Perhaps it is time for NATO and EU diplomats to act in a proactive fashion, reaching out to their Russian counterparts in an effort to anticipate both the problem and the solution, in a manner that does not create the conditions for inadvertent military conflict.

What is going on in Ukraine is tragic.

Ukraine has always been between a rock and a hard place with its history of being torn between East and West will not be easy to overcome.

However, the most positive outlook for a unified and prosperous Ukraine involves moving beyond this false and outdated dichotomy.

No nation of any standing will accept the presence of inimical ..interests surrounding its geographical borders.

There is a solution to the crisis in Ukraine, however — although it would require the West to think about the country in a fundamentally new way.

Is it time European nations and the USA gave serious thought to the need for the objectives of NATO?

I’m not sure NATO was ever solely a defensive force; it was equally a tool for US domination of Europe. 

We are left with the Question.

Why do wars occur and recur, especially in cases when the decisions involved are made by careful and rational actors?

There are many answers to this question.

For my part, they arise from an agency problem either on the part of the current ruler or the leader of the attack. There must exist incentives for conflict and some barriers to the ability to reach an enforceable bargain.

To fully understand decisions to go to war, such decisions cannot be divorced from the broader endogenous armament environment in which they reside.,

A peace agreement only becomes attainable after the balance of power has shifted so that it becomes in both sides’ interest to agree to peace.

This can take a long time. 

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

http://thesaker.is/how-russia-will-counterpunch-the-u-s-eu-declaration-of-war/

THE BEADY EYE SAYS. PEACE IS ” PERPETUAL WAR “

12 Saturday Mar 2022

Posted by in Remove term: RUSSIA/ UKRAINE/ US/ NATO/RUSSIA/ UKRAINE/ US/ NATO/ EU., The Ukraine., Uncategorized

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(Eight-minute read) 

Peace is “perpetual war.”       “Global” is imperial.

In today’s world, it is impossible to find a phenomenon that harms people more than war.While Trump Fiddles, Putin Steps Up the War in Ukraine

By now in our history, we all know that any war is to blame for people being killed.

It is not only military deaths but every living individual so you might be well asking why do we now have another war breaking out in Ukraine?

We all know that there are so many reasons for starting these wars that no appeal and no desire for peace will ever be heard if the authorities want so. Sometimes it simply is inevitable.

(This post is not to justify the out brake, rather try and understand why it is occurring in the first place.) 

It’s not just that Putin has become a  “farce with fangs.” in reclaiming Crimea. More than 90 percent of the population of Crimea voted to return the territory to Russia.

The conflict in Ukraine started with the refusal of ex-president Viktor Yanukovich to sign the agreement of Ukraine’s association with the European Union. Thousands of people, shocked by his decision, went to the streets to show their willingness to become part of Europe and live a happier and wealthier life.

Most of us have no knowledge about Ukraine and it’s not possible to explain its history in this post.

However, most of us are still not quite sure what Ukraine was or is. 

“Ukraine was a little bit like Ireland used to be within the United Kingdom” It was a subordinate part of a greater whole, of a greater empire.

“During the revolution that ushered in the Soviet Union, Ukraine fought for independence. It lost, and in 1922 was subsumed inside the communist state.

This was followed by Stalin creating  “The Holodomor an artificial famine,” to crush its people its language and culture. Just like the Irish Potato Famine known as the Great Hunger, which began in 1845 that saw millions of Irish either starve to death or immigrate. Stalin between 1932 and 1933, starved some four million Ukrainians to death.

The significance of the Potato Famine (or, in the Irish language, An Gorta Mor) in Irish history, and its contribution to the Irish diaspora of the 19th and 20th centuries, is beyond doubt still to this day. 

“The attempt to eliminate Ukrainian-ness and the sense of it, of a separate identity and the sense of nationhood, has really been a Russian policy since the 19th century, but its sense of nationhood was growing stronger.

And now this disaster has befallen them and this feeling that they may be dragged back into some horrific Stalin-era or Czarist-era nightmare must be tormenting a lot of them.

                                  —————-

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States has ringed Russia with military bases, nuclear warplanes, and missiles as part of its Nato Enlargement Project. NATO has, in effect, militarily occupied eastern Europe.

In fact in the former Soviet Caucasus, Nato’s expansion is the biggest military build-up since the Second World War.

Imagine the response if these acts of provocation, or intimidation, were carried out on America’s borders.

“It’s a nice and convenient myth that liberals are peacemakers and conservatives the warmongers.”

The once hopeful concept of  “Russian reform” now means regression, even destruction. In Orwellian fashion, this has been inverted in the west to the “Russian threat”.

The Nuremberg prosecutor Robert Jackson called “the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole”

                                  —————————-

As a consequence, we have witnessed Iraq dismembered with between 97,461 and 106,348 civilian deaths up to July 2010.

(The US has lost 4,487 service personnel. Half a million Iraqi infants under the age of five make up the Iraq deaths.) 

Syria flattened.  A decade of war in Syria has left more than 350,200 people dead.

Yemen. Almost a quarter of a million people have died in Yemen’s war. 

Afghanistan, so far the war killed 176,000 people in Afghanistan; some 2,460 US military personnel and 51000 Taliban.  

Israel/Palestine.  At least 10,316 Palestinians and 1,287 Israelis.

Myanmar. The Rohingya genocide.  

“Behind each recorded death is a human being, born free and equal, in dignity and rights”.

Some sources say that the Soviet Union had over 20,000,000 casualties, in world war Two. 

                             _________________

” Perhaps the imperialism of the liberal way may be more dangerous because of its open-ended nature: its conviction that it represents a superior form of life.”

It is “so widely accepted as to be virtually unchallengeable”.  

In the modern era, the employment of ethnic differences in western power and propaganda systems is now seen as essential.

Today’s grand illusion is of an information age when, in truth, we live in a media age in which incessant corporate propaganda is insidious, contagious, effective, and liberal is creating a world of inequalities.  

No Shelley speaks for the poor, no Blake for utopian dreams, no Byron damns the corruption of the ruling class, no Thomas Carlyle and John Ruskin reveal the moral disaster of capitalism. William Morris, Oscar Wilde, HG Wells, George Bernard Shaw have no equivalents today.

“Austerity” is the imposition of extreme capitalism on the poor and the gift of socialism for the rich: an ingenious system under which the majority service the debts of the few.

It’s no wonder we have wars. 

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks chucked in the bin

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THE BEADY EYE SAYS. PUTIN IS NOWADAYS ISOLATED AND IN HIS OWN ‘STEROID WORLD’. IN HIS OWN MENTAL WORLD.

09 Wednesday Mar 2022

Posted by in 2022: The year we need to change., RUSSIA/ UKRAINE/ US/ NATO/ EU, The Ukraine.

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(Three-minute read) 

Putin has been posing as Russia’s defender against an allegedly aggressive West and redeemer of ethnic Russians and brother Slavs everywhere since he came to power.

A heroic Ukrainian defense that actually repels Russian forces remains militarily unlikely,  but a Ukrainian victory would make all the above propaganda untenable.

He could not survive the defeat politically and knows it.

Therefore he won’t allow this scenario to happen.

Instead of withdrawing, he’ll follow one of three other paths.

                                             —————–

He could escalate the attack dramatically — but still with only conventional weapons. Basically, that means bombing Ukraine into submission. The loss of civilian and military lives would be horrendous, but Putin wouldn’t care. He would incorporate a seething and resentful Ukraine — either as a nominally independent puppet state or a subdivision of Greater Russia — and maybe add Belarus for good measure.

His empire would become a permanent pariah in the international community.

The world would have a new Iron Curtain.

Putin will therefore at least consider another — literally nuclear — option.

It’s the one he’s already hinted at.

Claiming that NATO and the EU are cornering him by supporting Ukraine with weapons and other wherewithal, he could launch one or more “limited” nuclear strikes with so-called tactical (here meaning low-yield) warheads.

Ukraine, like Japan in 1945, would have no choice but to surrender.

So what can be hope for?  

A homegrown Russian revolution would be by far the best outcome.

The new regime in Moscow could blame the attack on Putin alone, which happens to be true. It could therefore withdraw without looking weak. The international community could welcome Russia back with open arms. The world, including Russia, would become a better place.

China could flex its economic mussel.   

At the United Nations this week, 141 countries voted to deplore Putin’s aggression. China could have joined the four rogues (Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea, and Syria) who voted with Russia against the resolution.

Instead, along with 34 other countries, it merely abstained.

As for ‘steroids.’ They are synthetic hormones, similar to testosterone, which have anabolic (bodybuilding) effects due to the fact they stimulate the growth of skeletal muscle. They also have androgenic (male) effects which enhance typical male characteristics. When you see a male bodybuilder, many will have been using steroids to create this appearance.

PERHAPS THIS IS WHY PUTIN HAS LOST THE PLOT. 

In the long term, anabolic steroids affect the central nervous system of the human brain, directly on neurotransmitter systems.

After all, the best way to deal with a cornered rat is usually to let it escape before it does more harm.

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

THE BEADY EYE SAYS. THERE IS EVERY REASON TO BELIVE THAT A LIMITED NUCLEAR WAR WOULD’N REMAIN LIMITED.

05 Saturday Mar 2022

Posted by in Ukraine/ Russia., Unanswered Questions., War

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( TWO MINUTE READ) 

UKRAINE AT THE MOMENT IS A CONVENTIONAL BATTLEFIELD CONFLICT AND WE MUST HOPE THAT IT REMAINS SO. 

There’s a lot of talk and coverage by the media about the rationality of actions when discussing nuclear deterrence. They are throwing the word nuclear around without any real understanding of what they are advocating in an all-out nuclear war.

It would extend well beyond the warring nations, change the climate, jeopardize billions of people in a nuclear winter.

Even a modest nuclear exchange let’s say a few hundred warheads would produce huge quantities of ozone-consuming chemicals creating an ice age.

As everything would lie in ruin there would be no governmental structures that could function in such a postwar climate.

There is no such thing as a limited nuclear war as a realistic possibility.

                                       ___________________

Irresponsible media is the last thing anyone needs at the moment.

Unfortunately, it can’t resist, (somewhat understandable) turning the Para Olympics into a political platform, one of the last world forms representing world Peace. 

Let us understand that advocating the use of a non-strategic nuclear weapon whether it is Nato or Russia, threatens humanity’s very existence. (A Soviet SS-18 missile has eight 1- megaton warheads.) They make up a tiny fraction of strategic nuclear weapons in the Russian arsenal. Hiroshima mushroom cloud after the first atomic bomb was dropped by a US Air Force B-29

HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI FALLOUT IS ONE WEAPON EFFECT WITH WHICH WE HAVE EXPERIENCED AND IT WAS ONLY AN ATOMIC BOMB.  

IF NATO WERE TO LAUNCH LOW-YIELD TACTICAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS TO SIGNAL RUSSIA THAT IT HAS CROSSED A LINE IN AN ATTEMPT TO DE-ESCALATE THE SITUATION – THE CONSEQUENCES ARE UNIMAGINABLE.   

Radioactive fallout is unique to nuclear weapons. 

There is a near-universal agreement on the need to avoid a nuclear war.

                                        ———————

Could the war-shocked survivors meet the challenge? 

This question is so big that it’s best left unanswered since only an all-out nuclear war could decide it definitively. 

It might bring an abrupt end to the war, it will for certain bring an abrupt end to all life. 

Therefore it is the duty of all media platforms to avoid speculation but to promote untarnished awareness of just what is a stake.    

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. DO YOU REMEMBER BREXIT?

03 Thursday Mar 2022

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2022: The year we need to change., Brexit Remembered., The Ukraine.

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(Two-minute read) 


The UK left the EU on 31 January 2020. The transition period that was in place – during which nothing changed – ended on 31 December 2020. The rules governing the new relationship between the EU and UK took effect on 1 January 2021.

With the outbreak of war in Ukraine, it is now endeavoring to break its ties to Russian dirty money, which no doubt influenced it to leave the EU in the first place. As more and more information became available, there is no longer a mystery as to why the UK left the only organization that was formed to promote peace in Europe.

Now pathetically following in the footsteps of a United European Union with its response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine the true cost of leaving is becoming more and more apparent. 

When this war is over as it will be, because all wars run out of steam the UK is not going to be at any Summit with Europe to sort out the mess that remains. 

Of course, god forbid that the Ukrainian/ Russian spreads and turned into a nuclear conflict the “right to be forgotten” is written into European Union laws.

This might be to do with Privacy on the Internet, but in England’s case ( which is still unable to accept war refugees), it won’t be forgotten for all the non-nuclar reasons.

Is it conceivable that Britain might one day rejoin the European bloc it has now left?

The conventional wisdom says no, negotiations with Brussels will be a permanent fixture. Keeping the light on for its eventual return might now seem hopelessly romantic. 

But I say there will be a gradual process whereby the most damaging effect on the EU with England rejoining will have to be removed piecemeal before it is accepted back into the European Union. 

                                      ———————- 

It is estimated that Britain’s trade volume has been pushed down by more than 10 percent compared with what it would have been if it had remained in the EU but just wait till the Russian energy tap is turned off.

Then there may be some questions over the UK’s economic eligibility, especially if it had different level playing field rules to the EU.

Under Article 49, any country applying to become an EU member state must meet the following criteria:

  • Be a European state
  • Respect and commit to promoting Article 2 values – including human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law, human rights (specifically minority rights), pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity, and equality.
  • Have its application unanimously approved by the Council of the EU.
  • Have its application approved by a majority vote of the European Parliament.

The UK would also need to secure the support of all member states to open and conclude accession talks. Considering the UK’s historical reluctance to integrate with the EU fully, this may be a concern to the bloc.

The UK would also need to secure the support of MEPs.

Any country dissatisfied with the prospect of the UK as a member state could veto membership, and there will be many.

With all of the world’s answers seemingly at the touch of the keyboard, people have the ability to search and find information with ease.

Let’s hear your comments.

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS; WHY DO WARS OCCUR AND RECUR?

26 Saturday Feb 2022

Posted by in 2022: The year we need to change., Russia / Ukraine ., The Ukraine., Wars

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( Seven-minute read) 

We are incapable of living in peace with each other as there will always be incentives for conflict. 

Wars are inevitable because of the disposition of man and if we are unsuccessful in tackling climate change we will be seeing lots more of them so the answer to this question is that wars will be inevitable.

The plagues of wars these days seem more elusive than a cure for Covid/Climate change…No end to the carnage seems to be in sight. A lucrative arms trade ensures that the world’s armies​—and guerrillas—​will continue to be grimly effective.

More localized for the moment and ironically, this wholesale butchery is occurring during an age that has seen unparalleled efforts to outlaw war as a way of resolving disputes between nations.

The machine gun is no respecter of the fittest or boundaries, with the bomb annihilating the strong along with the weak.

Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf,  “Mankind has grown great in an eternal struggle, and only in eternal peace does it perish. . . . The stronger must dominate and not blend with the weaker.”

Over 2,000 years ago, Plato said that “only the dead have seen the end of war.” Is his bleak assessment a bitter truth we must learn to accept?

If war were inevitable, there would be little point in trying to end it.

War is not something created by the heat of passion. It takes years of preparation and indoctrination, weapons production, and training.

This is why we must use more effective and less destructive tools to resolve conflicts and to achieve security. Militarism has made us less safe and continues to do so.

War long predates Capitalism/ Communism.  War in human history up to this point has not correlated with population density or resource scarcity.

The idea that climate change and the resulting catastrophes will inevitably generate wars could be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The looming climate crisis is a good reason for us to outgrow our culture of war.

 Hunger in the world must be abolished, inequality must be irritated and profit for profit sake   

Why?

Because weapons must be the arbiters of so many disputes.    

There is an interrelation between different factors that lead to war? 

All wars have some plausible situations in the eyes of the decision-makers such that the anticipated gains from a war in terms of resources, power, glory, territory, and so forth exceed the expected costs of conflict, including expected damages to property and life.

Thus, for war to occur with rational actors, at least one of the sides involved has to expect that the gains from the conflict will outweigh the costs incurred.

There has to be a failure in bargaining so that for some reason there is an inability to reach a mutually advantageous and enforceable agreement.

A lack of enforceable agreements is often one of the main ingredients leading to protracted wars. 

Being faced by an armed rational or irrational foe leads a rational country to arm to some level. In turn, this now means that either a foe who is irrational or a foe who thinks that I might be irrational will be armed, even more, and this feedback continues to build.

So here we are after two world wars still unable to have any real understanding as to why we are witnessing the outbreak of war between Russia and Ukraine.

Now, Ukraine is the pawn.

America has bombed a sovereign country every day for the last twenty years, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen. Yet that is never part of the story we tell ourselves.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, we have used NATO to surround Russia.

Despite assurances, NATO would not expand to include former Soviet bloc countries, we have done just that. We weaponized Ukraine, minimized diplomatic solutions such as the Minsk Protocol, played a role in the 2014 coup that ousted the government there, and installed a pro-Western one.

But it does not seem to prevent our pro-Western government, our news media, our own selves from repeating the war myth it now becoming our bedtime story, one that seeds a nightmare.

The West as the good guys and everyone else as evil. We have arrived at this point of peril in Eastern Europe because we have lost the ability to see the world through the eyes of another. 

It thus becomes impossible to comprehend the behavior of other nations, to understand their fears, their concerns. We know only our own created story, our own myth, we care only for our own concerns, and so are forever at war.

We become provocateurs rather than peacemakers.

Ukraine should not have to suffer invasion by Russia. And Russia should not have had its safety and security threatened by NATO expansion and weaponry.

A good portion of our overview of the causes of war is thus spent discussing a framework of different bargaining failures.

So how will this Russian/ Ukrainian war be ended?  

The same as all wars a tragedy, creating the ground for the next war.

We seem to be caught somewhere in an unplanned downward trajectory slipping lower and lower, circling around and around toward some kind of catastrophe that is as yet unvisualised and unseen.  

We are very close to passing some irreversibly turning point, after which we will not be able to go back.

Let’s see if maybe we can miss the huge disaster that now seems to be looming in our future. We need to turn our full attention to fixing our environment.

Are we truly incapable of resolving these concerns without slaughtering each other? Is our intellect that limited, our patience that short, our humanity so curdled that we must repeatedly reach for the sword? War is not genetically set in our bones, and these problems are not divinely created. We made them, and the myths surrounding them, and so we can unmake them.

We must believe this if we are to survive. 

This is a long hard battle to be won.  Let’s pick our own future.

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

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THE BEADY EYE ASKS. WHY HAS RUSSIA COME TO FEAR THE UKRAINE

22 Saturday Jan 2022

Posted by in RUSSIA/ UKRAINE/ US/ NATO/ EU.

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(Five-minute read) 

Here we are once more on the brink of another war with Ukraine as the host venue.

After World War II, the western part of Ukraine merged into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, and the whole country became a part of the Soviet Union with it gaining its independence in 1991, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Since then Hostilities have simmered for years.

So, what is at the heart of the conflict that has been going on for more than seven years?

Ukraine went through two revolutions in 2005 and 2014, both times rejecting Russia’s supremacy and seeking a path to join the European Union and NATO.

                                      ———————-

Amid growing concerns, we now have Russia poised to invade Ukraine, with conflicting news reporting as to what is happening and who is to blame.

As we live in such a fucked up world it’s a wonder that any of us exist so you could not be blamed if you are at a loss.   

Is it Nato or Russia?

In Putin’s reality, Russia is encircled and under threat and is required to defend itself from Nato. As Putin sees it, only the threat of war can reopen a conversation that, to many in the West, has long felt like settled history: the expansion of nato eastward, the denial of a Russian veto on questions of regional security, and the underlying sense that Russia lost the Cold War.

So Ukraine presents an opportunity for Russia, once and for all, to reassert its geopolitical relevance. If Ukraine joins nato or is drawn into a de-facto military alliance with it, then Putin’s project has failed; if Ukraine is kept from doing so, Putin has fulfilled his historical role.

The reality is whatever the ultimate composition of Russia’s forces, their ability to overwhelm the Ukrainian military is not in doubt. Once such a sizable military force is in place, it is enviable that it comes to exert its own influence on events.

Russia is now calling on Nato states to formally retract a 2008 pledge that the alliance would one day admit Ukraine and Georgia, promise not to deploy certain weapons systems to states near Russia, and refrain from military drills and maneuvers near Russia’s borders.

Even if the U.S. and other Nato members were ready to negotiate on these strategic questions, there is no realistic scenario in which significant progress, much less a formal agreement, could be made in the compressed timeline that Russia seems to be demanding.

This means that, in the end, the West will cave so as to stave off a war it doesn’t want.

After all, a Russian-Ukrainian war is a lose-lose for Western states: either they look feckless if they do nothing and Ukraine is defeated, or they feel compelled to intervene, risking a wider war with Russia that no one has the stomach for.

                                —————

All of this is raising concerns that Europe may again be beset by war.

NATO was established 66 years ago today, on April 4, 1949, since then it has reinvented itself becoming a military pact against Russia undertaking to arm all the nations around Russia.

Sixty-six years later NATO still exists, as many have argued, for no good reason to counteract threats that are either imagined or which only exist because NATO itself exists. Or worse, to lend legitimacy to the geopolitical whims of its only beneficiary. 

There is no treaty obligation to defend Ukraine, which is not a NATO member, so some of the toughest decisions could fall on the European Union.

So where are we?

While the UN these days rarely serves anyone well, NATO serves U.S. interests.

If Putin is seeking to restore dialogue with the West, especially the US, the amassing an army next to Ukraine has worked already.

It’s time for a face-to-face between Putin and Biden. 

Since 2018, the U.S. has sold hundreds of anti-tank Javelin missiles to Ukraine. Last March, the Pentagon announced a hundred-and-twenty-five-million-dollar military-aid package, which included armored patrol boats.

In November, Ukraine signed a treaty with the United Kingdom that would allow it to buy British warships and missiles.

Given all that weaponry, what would keep Nato armies from establishing bases?

The issue is not so much Ukraine but the underlying principle:

If a military alliance seeks to expand, it has to consider the interests of those who are opposed.

Russia, in other words, can’t be expected to remain a passive observer of actions that it believes violate its core security concerns. 

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin